Abstract

If we can see the knowledge society as an essential part of the “external environment” of the firm management, that brings with it some specific opportunities and threats, we have to consider the intellectual capital – that integrates the two basic resources: knowledge and human – a key ingredient for the “internal environment” of the firm management, which determines some strengths and/or weaknesses that lead to the success or the failure of the managerial effort of the firm operating under the circumstances given by the emergency of three processes with global spread: the economic globalization, the managerial revolution and the knowledge-based society.
Having as starting point the premise that Peter Drucker emphasized years ago: the managerial revolution represents the third essential change into the dynamics of knowledge, when knowledge is applied to knowledge itself, we have to accept the priority of the human factor – which generates, uses and valorizes knowledge in a never ending process of interaction with the environment. By continuing with this logic, we can not ignore that, even if there is no unanimously recognized approach about the meaning of the intellectual capital, it appears recently a quasi-unanimous recognized opinion regarding the first place that the intellectual capital has to take as source for the competitive advantage of the firm and strategic resource for its management.
More than that, in a time when knowledge becomes the strategic resource for any of the human activities, firms shift through a new managerial paradigm that characterize “the civilized business” and promote management intellectualization.
By this way, the valorization of the intellectual capital of the firm could become vital criteria for the managerial performance in the knowledge – based society.